Past Lives: How to Tell If You’re an Old Soul

There’s no way to know for sure if death is the end. Is there simply nothing waiting for us or do we move on to another plane of existence? For many, the idea that we’ve been here before, that with every fully lived life we get to come back and start again, fresh in a new body without any of our memories, is a theory that holds plenty of weight. There’s even a word for the feeling that you’ve been here before: being an old soul.

But how can you tell whether you’re one of those old souls or not? There are a number of barely perceptible hints that can show you the way to unlock the secrets of who you may have been in one of those past lives.

Here are a few ways you can tell if you’ve lived more than once

Memories of Events that Never Happened, Places You’ve Never Been

Have you ever stepped into a strange room and been overwhelmed with the feeling of having been there before, even though you know you never have? Does some event trigger a memory that seems like you’re own but couldn’t possibly be? You’re experiencing déjà vu, something that could indicate that you’re remembering a snippet of a past life. While everyone might experience this sensation once in a while, those of us who have been here before might find that they experience déjà vu much more often.

Vivid Dreams That Occur Over and Over Again

Just about everyone dreams, even if they don’t always remember them. Lots of people lead vivid dream lives, and the brain uses dream time to process the events of the day, mull over problems, and any number of other things that we’re still just learning about. Yet when you have dreams that are especially vivid, and ones that occur over and over again throughout a long period of time, these can be telltale signs of having been here before. Hints that these could be past life memories include being dressed in period clothing, participating in historical events, and looking and/or feeling like someone different than who you are now.

An Attraction to Certain Time Periods or Cultures

Have you always been interested in Elizabethan England? Renaissance Italy? Ancient Greece? Do you not really know why you’re drawn to these cultures or time periods, especially if you don’t have any ancestral ties to these times and cultures? While sometimes this might be just an affinity, it could also be an indication that you might have been present in that culture during a time well before the present day. If you just feel “at home” wearing another culture’s dress, learning their language, enjoying their art, and other related things as if they were your own, though, chances are high you’re feeling vibrations from a past life.

Phobias, Fears, and Other Unexplained Emotions

It’s natural to not like spiders, or heights, or anything else that commonly makes people anxious. Irrational fears are uncommon but not rare. However, if you have a phobia or other apprehensions that don’t stem from something you experienced in this life, you might be feeling evidence of a fear you picked up from a last one, perhaps even because it might have been how you died. Scared of going swimming, for example, even though you’ve never experienced anything negative associated with the water? You might just have drowned in a former life, and the trauma was so deep that it’s bleeding over into this life.

Possessing Strong, Almost Supernatural, Levels of Intuition

Have you been good at picking right answers seemingly at “random”? Can you just get a feel for a situation, or peg someone’s personality, right off the bat without observing for very long? You’ve got a strong intuitive sense. Some people are just born that way, but it’s not necessarily random. Having that strong an intuition could be evidence that you’re relying on the wisdom of the lives you’ve already lived in the past, and that’s informing your decisions. These aren’t even memories you’re receiving — more like gut feelings. They’re just coming from an older, wiser version of you that you might not know about.

Being Uncannily Talented in a Language You Don’t Know

It’s one thing to have a knack for learning languages — lots of people are talented that way. Yet it’s quite another to have an instinctual, almost uncanny ability to read, speak, and understand a language you’ve never spent time studying. In many situations, this can be a real shock to you and the people around you, especially if this hidden skill manifests itself while you’re talking in your sleep or undergoing hypnosis. Without any other possible explanation, it’s a strong sign that you spoke that language in a past life, and that part of you still retains that knowledge to this very day.

Being Unnaturally Good at History Without Studying

There’s smart, and then there’s cheating. If you’ve never had to open a textbook to pass a history exam in your life, you might just have an incredibly good memory when it comes to your in-class lectures. The alternative, though, is that you’re preternaturally good at history class because you’ve got an affinity for just knowing things about people, places, and events that occurred well in the past because you were alive at the time and you’re tapping into the vast repository of your past life memories.

Unexplained Physical Symptoms

The human body is mysterious. Plenty of us have aches and pains that appear out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly, but persistent physical symptoms that you suffer from that don’t seem to have any traceable source could be an indication of an old wound or illness that you experienced in a past life. In many cases, if you look into your past life history and begin to discover who you might have been and what might have happened to you, your strange symptoms may lessen or even disappear upon figuring them out.

Strange and Mysterious Birthmarks

Much like how some people suffer from strange physical symptoms that might originate from trauma in past lives, some people born with noteworthy birthmarks might be able to use these birthmarks as indicators of things that happened to them in a past life. If you were bitten by a snake in your previous life, you might have a birthmark that looks suspiciously like a snakebite — and looking at that birthmark in such a way might help you trigger some past-life memories of the event.

Feeling Like You’re Older Than You Are

There’s a reason people call you an “old soul” sometimes. Whether you were an incredibly mature child, have wisdom beyond your years as a young adult, or simply have a knack for getting things right without being told what to do or how to do it, you could just be lucky — or you could be benefiting from a number of lifetimes that you’ve lived already and that you’re half-remembering. In the case of simply knowing what to do, you might not be remembering them at all but simply feeling them on an instinctual level.

Not Having a Particularly Strong Bond with Immediate Family

No family is perfect. Sometimes we just don’t get along with our parents or siblings, and there is any number of reasons why that may be. Yet in some instances, not having a particularly strong bond with your immediate family members, especially with your parents, may indicate that you’re closely connected with one of your past lives. If this is accompanied by feelings of closeness with other parents that you might not even know — such as strangers that you see in your dreams — you could very well be feeling the effects of a particularly strong bond between you and your parents from a former life.

Feeling Like You’re In the “Wrong” Body

There’s no rule when it comes to reincarnation that you’re going to end up in a body of the same gender every time. You’re just as likely to be a man in one life, a woman in the next, and then a man in yet another, and so on and so forth. In some instances, when you feel in your current life that you might have been born into a body that’s the opposite gender or is otherwise somehow “wrong”, this could be you remembering what it was like to live your life in your previous body.

Not Feeling Like Your Home is Truly “Home”

Sometimes, people who have a closer tie to their past lives than others might feel especially out of place in their current life. This can extend to feelings of not truly having a home of your very own, even if you’ve grown up in the same place with all your current family members. Some people even believe that we could have lived past lives on other planets or in other dimensions, which might make this feeling of not belonging anywhere even more intense. If you feel like you’ve never fit in, that nobody understands you, and that everything is just slightly off, this might be what’s troubling you.